


you're human tonight

by lavenderwarm



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Drabble, M/M, Major Spoilers, arikane, arisasa, this is rly sad lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-15 06:06:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderwarm/pseuds/lavenderwarm
Summary: Kaneki and Sasaki are two lovers, people who keep breaking up and getting back together. Having apology sex again and again and again. Arima is so afraid of losing something he loves that he refuses to love at all. Though, he supposes that that isn’t quite correct. He dreads having to kill the things he loves. And he's only human after all.--Everyone is sad even though no one deserves to be. This is how I imagine Arima and Kaneki/Sasaki experience their grief.





	1. gilded places

**Author's Note:**

> I've read about half of TG:Re and I took a lot of liberties with this so forgive me if some of this isn't accurate or non-canonical. I need to get the sadness of Arima dying out of my system.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mado grieves.   
> In which Kaneki remembers.   
> In which Arima feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For full effect, listen to Wanderers from the TG OST (link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixQn6rhOJU&list=FL9fG2bvgkkTKpKLP29emYYw&index=3) for full effect. It's what I listened to while writing this. Tell me how this made you feel if you can.

Mado Akira is absolutely shitfaced.

Sasaki Haise is ramrod straight, much to his chagrin, as Mado drawls sleepily on his shoulder. The night is a cool one as far as summer nights go, lazy and crawling.

“Hey!” She shouts in his ear. The investigator winces, wanting to cringe away but scared to stop offering his shoulder lest the woman crumple to the floor. “You aren’t paying attention you je-erk.” She hics.

“Akira-san,” he sighs. This is too much, even for Sasaki. “We should get home. Do you know where your address is?”

Sasaki takes his wallet out to leave their bill and begins to gather their belongings. Vaguely he wonders how much Mado suppresses on a daily basis if her drunken demeanor is so different from her professional one. It’s not saying much he guesses – everyone does it. But Mado really can’t hold her alcohol for shit.

“Come on,” he breathes as he slings her arm around his shoulders. She’s heavier than she looks; probably because she’s all muscle; all grit and self-discipline and resolve. Sasaki could complain about this; could begrudge Akira-san and think to himself that this isn’t his job – that he didn't sign up for this. Lately however, he’s found that he’s much happier thinking about things in ways that allow him to be grateful.

_I’m so happy she trusts me enough to do this kind of thing in front of me._

_I’m so happy we have the time to do things like this, going out to bars and spending time together._

_I’m so happy I’m able to work for the CCG and be surrounded by judicious and kind-hearted people._

_I’m so happy we’re still alive._

_I’m so happy._

_I’m so happy._

***

The fan goes around and around, lilting to the right, and stopping, changing direction, lilting to the left, again and again and again – its noise is loud, but somehow soft.

“He never told me loved me.”

Sasaki sighs and lets his eyelids flutter closed, feeling the wind blown upon him by the fan. He sees his coworker unsurreptitiously hang over the edge of her balcony, kind of reaching out her right arm towards something he can’t see. He wonders what she expects him to say; if she’ll remember being so openly vulnerable with him in the morning when she wakes; if she’ll regret it.

“I guess,” he trails off thinking about Amon Koutarou, this model investigator that he never got to meet, this incredible man who he _knows_ for some reason was kind and warm and devoted despite never having shaken his hand. “I guess some things just don’t need to be said.”

She doesn’t answer.

Across the street in a different apartment complex, the lights turn on in one room and Sasaki can see the silhouette of two people getting home at this ungodly hour, at this eerie in-between time that’s neither day nor night. _Is it warm,_ he wonders, _being held like that? Did he ever hold Akira-san that way?_

Mado Akira lets out a sudden breath that gets caught in her chest, stuttering its way out of her diaphragm up to the dredges of her throat. She crumples to the floor leaning against the railing and heaves a quiet sob.

“But Haise –” now wailing “– it’s what I needed to hear.”

***

“I was 19 when I first met you. You were my hero, you know.”

Arima feels the air get knocked out of his lungs. The Reaper blinks once and looks off to the side. “I dislike that word.”

“Arima-san,” Saski says suddenly. “Are you afraid of dying?”

A barista rushes by in a green turtleneck and black apron carrying a latte and a cup of black dark roast for them. Both Arima and Sasaki smile gracefully as they accept their cups. Arima takes a sip. Vaguely Arima thinks that if someone were to cut him open, they might find coffee running through the Reaper’s veins instead of blood.

“Heroes aren’t real.” He sighs a little as he cups his hands around the mug. “We’re all just people doing our best.”

The two-toned investigator puffs his cheeks a little to show his discontent for having his question slighted but figures it must be because it’s something Arima doesn’t want to answer. “Look,” he beams, trying to change the subject as he shows Arima his cup. “It’s a teddy bear!”

Arima peers over at his latte art and cracks something that might be the beginnings of a smile. “It’s cute.”

“Alright so!” Sasaki straightens his back and flashes the best smile he can muster while bringing his hands to his hips. Papers shuffle and padfolios are brought to the surface of the table; he makes sure to arrange them in a way that would satisfy his mentor, his methodical, perfect, immaculate teacher. Sasaki begins to report and debrief all of the details of the auction mopping-up operation.

***

“They’re dead.” They say, a cold hand threading through bleached, white hairs, gripping them unforgivingly. “All of them. I killed them all.”

_Ah – this is it. The big pain. The one that will never end._

Vaguely, he can hear someone screaming, babbling. He wishes they’d shut the fuck up so he can concentrate on what is being told to him. Ugh. His eyes, his _head,_ why does everything hurt so much? Fuck.

It’s so cold in this room. He can’t feel his extremities. Why is that bastard still screaming? Does he ever stop screaming? Blindly he gropes around for some kind of purchase. He can feel the other’s arm, the clothing starched and cold; some kind of suit. He stumbles into the other’s chest.

“WHWHYG-” The gurgling continues.

Pain lances exquisitely through his skull as light sears through his flesh. The material obscuring his vision comes off but he can’t see anything. He can’t see anything. All he can see is a silhouette. _Is that God? Is that he?_

He clenches his fist around whatever he’s gripping and lets himself be supported by the other. “WH-HO AM I?” He can’t breathe. The air strokes the insides of his lungs but leaves without doing its job. Everything swims. “I am, , , I am– me? Who am I,,”

\---

Arima slowly cards his fingers through 240’s matted hair. It’s so thin and white. He wonders why 240’s hair is white like his. He wonders what Kaneki Ken trudged through only to wind up here. As he sorts it out, crimson blooms lightly on its edges. Arima’s fingers are soaked in plush velvet, a rubicund, viscous thing. Tangy. Salty. Nauseating.

240 lays on his lap, blood mixed with tears pouring from orifices in his skull. He does not move. Barely breathes.

“In this room,” Arima whispers, wondering who, exactly, he is talking to. “You must not love anyone.”

\---

Months they spent like that. Kaneki struggling. 240 flailing. Inmate shrieking for dear life. When God didn’t gouge out his eyes for him, he did it with his own hands. Everything was so ugly. A wrong world, so ugly, so broken; so many people running around trying to fix a wounded world that didn’t want to admit it was sick. It was better when he couldn’t see; when he didn’t need to focus on anything.

Months he spent existing – existing, but a little to the left. A little to the right. Off axis. Round and round.

At some point in time he stopped, allowed his eyes to heal properly. He spent a lot of his time trying to figure things out, put the things where they were supposed to be. Hit himself because no one else would.

The line between atonement and pleasure had become blurry but it was okay. They had never been very clear for him anyways. He’d always been like that. Wait– why had he always been like that? Was it normal to not feel okay unless one was in pain?

_God, I want to be in pain. I want to rip myself open, tear myself limb from limb, tear off fingernails one two three at a time and hit the ocean going a mile minute I want to set myself on fire shred my skin glimpse inside my velvet bones I want–_

He can’t help it anymore. He pulls down the skin on his cheek with one hands and grabs his eye with the other and he –

\---

Arima does _not_ lose sleep over it. He doesn’t.

\---

The familiar cold hands of God are holding his. He begins to think that this darkness is God.

“You cannot keep doing this to yourself. You’ll die. You need to eat.”

If he could roll his eyes he would.

“Why do you hurt yourself?”

“Because I deserve it.” There is no beat missed.

“You deserve it?” He echoes back. “Why?”

“I am me.” And that is his answer.

“And what about me?”

He pauses. “No. You aren’t me. So you don’t deserve it.”

“Why do only you deserve it?”

“I can’t answer that question,” he trails off. “I don’t think… I don’t know who I am. But I know I deserve it.”  

\---

_“He is Ainu, the aged eagle_

_He who is old and tired of pain_

_Of snow-white beard and majestic garments_

_He sharpens his swords, cross legged—_

_He trims the dead mans fingers and his minds clouds —_

_Thou who art laid out on the ground!_

_All is good. I pray. I grow old. I lament._

_I am white and already gleaming._

_I fade ever so soon.”_

\---

A book slips in through the crack in the wall where food would normally be shuttled in through. _The Black Goat’s Egg,_ it reads. “If this is not enough, I’ll be sure to bring more.”

***

His name is Arima, he learns. Arima Kishou. A noble general; a shining commander atop his horse. And he? Who is he?

“Pick your two favorite characters,” Arima says to him.

He suddenly realizes it’s so cold in the room. It’s so fucking cold and lonely and miserable. He nearly starts to weep. He doesn’t want anything life-changing. A cup of coffee to share; a warm blanket; the blue sky; that’s all.

“Haise,” he smiles slightly. Haise. Hai, or hi from coffee. Se from world. It really is beautiful.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. silver halos and stradivarius strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arima is still learning how to hold something without breaking it.  
> In which Kaneki aches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so fucking emo I'm so sorry gfjhkfd.  
> For full heartbreak effect listen to Nine by Yamada Yutaka, from the TG JACK OVA (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k699IAc1TPA&index=5&list=FL9fG2bvgkkTKpKLP29emYYw), right click on the video, and loop the song while you read this chapter. It's what I listened to while writing this.  
> Also Arima and Kaneki fuck in this chapter, but it's not explicit. It's less about sex and more about grief.  
> Also, please tell me how this made you feel if you can; it would mean the world to me.

He has stopped a rampaging Haise plenty of times. 

He’s always been an investigator first, a human second; always done what needed to be done. The most effective way to neutralize an enemy is to take away their sight. Arima knows this because of his own. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks, glancing over to Haise who’s taken off his glasses and start rubbing his eyes. Arima notes just how unsettling his pitch black hair is. 

“My head hurts,” he mumbles. “A lot. My eyes are throbbing.”

He looks over to the book Haise has put down – the Little Prince. “Take some ibuprofen?” Arima suggests gently, getting up to grab it. He knows the chateau well enough to know where it’s stored. 

He grabs the others sleeve to stop him from going anywhere. “It hasn’t really been helping recently.” 

***

“Stand up.”

“I can’t,” he almost weeps. “Arima-san,  _ I can’t _ .”

Crumpled on the floor like a wet piece of paper, Haise vaguely hears the shuffling of Arima’s starched clothes ruffling as he moves. The two-toned investigator feels the world move around him in a disorienting blur and suddenly he’s staring down the length of Ixa.

_ God, just do it. _ His eyelids flutter shut.  _ Please just fucking do it.  _

“Do you want to die here?”

_ Again –  _ Haise finishes the question for him. Would it be so bad if he said he did? If he said he wanted to? He tilts his head up to give easier access; lets his wants terrify him; wants God to rip him open and call his insides beautiful. 

He feels the hand gripping his collar tighten and he allows Arima to press the reset. 

\---

Arima makes his body a crime scene. He wonders how he can do it so coldly. Gently scramble his innards like that. Tenderly unwrap his organs like he’s arranging higanbana. 

The Reaper breaks his bones and he –

–  _ laughs _ . 

\---

“Do you remember who you are?”

“Of course. I’m Sasaki Haise.”

***

“Haise.”

He stops walking, feet coming to a halt. “Akira-san,” he turns around to greet her in the corridor. 

“You know you can-” she stops to swallow. He thinks she’s nervous, given the way she’s staring at him like he’s hurt, like he’s been wounded or something. “You can always talk to me about anything.”

He brings a smile his lips; lets the hurt bloom like a cut.  _ Mother,  _ his mind sings to him. It serenades him, holds him gently and kisses away the bruises in the dead of night. 

“Thank you,” Kaneki stares gently at the tile in the hall. The sun beams through the clear glass of the CCG building; he feels its warmth through his black coat. He cocks his head as he pushes his glasses up. 

_ This isn’t fair, _ something in him wails like a lost child.  _ I didn’t know _ ! How does one un-want something they have yearned for their entire life? Is there a way to kindly explain to the body that she, in her cold wisdom was wrong?  

_ I was so happy, _ he lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment to bask in the sunlight.  _ I had everything I could have asked for. _ “The feeling is mutual,” he says as he opens his eyes again. “Akira-san, do you want to grab drinks tonight?” 

She looks like she’s been shot. Kaneki chuckles a little to himself. “Just make sure you drink in Mado-ration,” his eyes glint as he strikes a ridiculous pose. 

She inhales a bit, and Kaneki eagerly awaits her response. “God, you’re as awful as ever, Haise. I’m busy tonight but…”

When she laughs, Kaneki hears wind chimes. 

***

Kissing Arima tastes like every dark thought Kaneki’s ever had. He wonders if Arima closes his eyes when they kiss like that. Kaneki does. He can’t look at Arima when he’s standing so close to him. He has this aura; some kind of  _ bruising _ brilliance that makes him too difficult to stare directly at. 

The larger man hikes his student up effortlessly and he wraps his legs around him. 

_ Arima,  _ the black-haired investigator thinks as their glasses clink softly together.  _ How many years deep are your wounds?  _

And his? What’s his damage? What’s his problem? Nothing’s wrong with him, per se. He just loves too much, he supposes. 

Arima carries him to the bed they rid each other of their clothing in some kind of animalistic frenzy of hunger and lust. Fuck, he is so  _ tired,  _ but he  _ needs _ this right now. It’s so  _ painful _ , understanding things. Understanding things all the time, every day and every night – excruciating. He wonders how his mentor does it, knowing everything with cold gaze and objective eyes. 

He knows; and that’s the trouble. They both know. 

\---

Haise feels unexpectedly frail under his touch. Was he always so fragile? Is this the same man Arima has killed again and again? This mess of trembling limbs and tears? 

“Arima-a!” 

His large hand grasps Haise’s waist in silent affirmation. “Am I hurting you?” He asks, pressing an open mouth to his forehead, as if he hasn’t before; as if it’s their first time doing this; as if, as if,  _ as if _ –

“No!” He gasps and buries his face in his neck. “You’re not hurting me I just-” Poor boy can’t catch his breath, shaking and clawing at his back. It stings but it feels cleansing; grounding, almost. 

_ God I wish I could see you more clearly.  _ He curses his eyes, resists the urge to rub them when he knows its not going to make it better. He’s had to do that a lot recently; remind himself that some things just aren’t worth the trouble. Arima brings his face to Haise’s and keeps it there, forehead to forehead.  _ Remember this. _ He demands of himself.  _ Remember this.  _ He feels a cry catch in the cavity of his own rib cage.  _ Burn it into your memory.  _

“Turn the lights o-” Arima captures his lips; tries to prevent him from finishing the sentence.  _ I want to see him.  _ Haise tries to push him back, arms shaking, chest heaving. “Papa-” he breathes and Arima flinches. It’s almost vulgar in its childlike demeanor. “Please,” he pants. “Off.” 

The older investigator reaches over to the lamp by the nightstand without halting his movements and reluctantly turns them off.  _ You know as well as I do that the darkness doesn’t make the bruises go away.  _ Arima can only intensify his motions.  _ It only makes them harder to discern.  _

The boy is sobbing into his chest. Arima holds him tighter.  _ Why does he cry like this? Where does it all go? How much pain fits into a person?  _

\---

Sex with Arima is always a near-death experience. Sometimes Kaneki is convinced that the only reason his eyes were allowed to fully heal was so that he could use them to cry in bed with his mentor. 

_He’s a fucking God_ , Haise thinks. Moonlight sets his gilden skin ablaze. In the space between his neck and shoulder, ghosts sit and sing their hymns to him _._ _Who wouldn’t sink to you in longing, Kishou?_ Wrought from silver halos and stradivarius strings… He deserves a cornucopia of blessings and prayers. 

Jesus, Kaneki wants to hold him forever and ever and sing hymns to his name, but forever is only a  _ week _ (because that’s when the Rushima operation begins and  _ that’s when everything ends _ ) and everything is so  _ fucking unfair.  _

_ I’ve decided,  _ he repeats to himself like a mantra, like a lifeline.  _ I’ve already decided…. I’ve made up my mind. So why? Why do i hesitate?  _

He knows why. It’s because Kaneki and Sasaki are two lovers, two people who keep breaking up and getting back together. Having apology sex again and again and again; trying to reconcile, realizing that the efforts are in vain, but trying again. It’s painful you know, trying to smash two puzzle pieces together like that when they just don’t fucking fit.

Two lovers having apology sex. Just like he and Arima do. Just like the world does at 4am when the quiet is too much and the words are empty but the heart is too full. 

_ We can’t reconcile.  _

_ Oh wait, maybe we can,  _

_ No wait, there are too many differences.  _

But the truth is, he is not himself without one or the other. He may have been Kaneki Ken, and he may have regained his memories, but he cannot say without hesitation that he did not love being Sasaki Haise in all of his gentle, oblivious glory for three, four years. 

And just as being himself was something of a joke – _ nec possum tecum vivere nec sine te–  _ loving Arima was like drinking absinthe; experiencing something half-poison, half-god. 

_ I cannot live with you, nor without you.  _

He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to ache so badly he can’t _possibly_ think about it.  

\---

The Reaper as an enabler.

Arima thinks about who Haise is to him as a person and why he is at such an emotional stalemate. Maybe it’s because he understands. Maybe because he has known loss, and it has made him kind. 

\---

“You’re being so gentle, Kishou.” He cries, gasping. “It’s too much! What are you doing,” he babbles, “why wh y whywhy.”

“Let me see your face.” Arima tries to cradle him in his broad arms so he can see him, his beautiful kakugan, his ragged breathing, like some kind of furious protest at having to live on this godforsaken earth. The other flinches away violently and the Reaper feels more wetness spread against the crook of his neck where Haise has buried himself. Guilt blooms through him. 

_ I never wanted to hurt anyone.  _

“Haise,” he kisses his matted hair, trying to close the distance but for some reason, the other still feels so far away. 

_ I can’t stand the thought of you being afraid of me.  _

This world is full of distance and Kishou curses it for it. 

\---

_ It doesn’t  _ **_hurt_ ** _ enough--  _

_ \--- _

“You’ve been doing an excellent job of destroying yourself.”

\---

_ I need you to fuck the  _ **_life_ ** _ out of me. _

_ \--- _

“Unfortunately, you’re valuable and-”

\---

_ Oh  _ **_fuck_ ** _ valuable. _

\---

“-I can’t let you follow through, not yet.”

Arima is so afraid of losing something he loves that he refuses to love at all. Though, he supposes that that isn’t quite correct. He dreads having to end something he loves. Losing… ending… everything in this world is loss. 

He always thought he was an investigator first, a human second. Washuu had taught him that; that wretched shithole of a sunlit garden had taught him that. The fact that he thought that everyone had the same heart as he did and _ that fucked him up _ taught him that. 

_ My dear lost one-- _

Arima Kishou doesn’t flinch. But he’s human tonight.

\--  _ your parents failed in raising you. _

_ *** _

The ceiling fan goes round and round in the darkness, making repetitive clicking noises. Next to him, Kaneki hears soft and even breathing. Like this, he supposes even the Reaper can be human sometimes. 

Their limbs are tangled together in this mess of wrinkled sheets and sticky skin. Kaneki wonders if he could have lived happily for the rest of his life as Sasaki; if he could have burdened Arima with the question of his humanity when he himself could barely handle it. Absentmindedly he thinks that he certainly would have been more comfortable not knowing, but he wouldn’t have been happier. 

And isn’t that all that matters in his life? His happiness?  _ You’re awful, _ he laughs; cries. 

For now, Kaneki wants to be grateful for everything he had the chance to experience the past three years. Strong coffee; food that was delicious to the point of tears; rewarding work; motivating companions. Isn’t that all anyone needs? Little things? 

Kaneki burrows more deeply under Arima’s powerful arms and allows the cold touch of his mentor’s skin to burn him, whispers to him with a mouth full of stars and hopes – drifts off to rest with the heavy but protective quiet between the two of them. 

Next week, twenty-four of them will die. 

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
